The Witcher: Blood Origin is a six-part prequel coming to Netflix

(Image credit: CD Projekt)

Netflix's adaptation of The Witcher has already spawned a second season and an animated movie, and now we can add another brand extension onto the lengthening list. The Witcher: Blood Origin is a live-action prequel series set more than a thousand years before Geralt started stomping around the Continent.

"1200 years before Geralt of Rivia, the worlds of monsters, men and elves merged into one, and the first Witcher came to be," the announcement reads. The Witcher showrunner Lauren Hissrich is co-creating it with Declan de Barra, who also wrote an episode in the first season.

The worlds merging into one is a reference to the Conjunction of the Spheres, the event that trapped various races and supernatural creatures all in one dimension. It filled the world with monsters, magical races and the first humans, as well as giving sorcerers their power.

In the games and novels, the Conjunction of the Spheres took place 1,500 years ago, but the witcher orders didn't appear until later, when the land that would become Temeria was first colonised by humans. Perhaps the miniseries will squash the events together a bit, showing us both the Conjunction of the Spheres and the appearance of the first witcher.

"I've always wanted to dive deeper into the myth and lore of the Continent," Hissrich said on Twitter. And it doesn't get much deeper than the birth of the world.

This has been the toughest secret to keep! I've always wanted to dive deeper into the myth and lore of the Continent, and now fans will have a chance to explore it with @declandebarra in a prequel series, THE WITCHER: BLOOD ORIGIN. Elves, and enemies, and the end, oh my… https://t.co/SGzrf4WbxZJuly 27, 2020

There's a lot of gaps in what we know about the origins of the witchers and the cataclysm, which will presumably give the writing team a bit more freedom to put more of their own ideas into the mix. Witcher content without the star power of Geralt would have seemed unthinkable before the success of the original series, so this spin-off is testament to how seriously Netflix is taking the franchise. Aside from the setting, we don't know anything else about the story, and there's no release date yet.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.